counting down

I'm counting down to Baby D day and a week out I'm getting a bit grumpy.

Often on Sunday evenings we watch a DVD and iron shirts for the week - well one of us does the ironing - it has always been Duncan up till now - but when he really busy with projects or work I helpi him out - and it so beats doing the dishes which is the other option.

Right now he is up in the baby's room which he has blacked out and is photographing bottles of wine for a friend's parent's vineyard website - so for once I thought I might blog. It's Labour Weekend so the shirt ironing will no doubt wait until tomorrow.

My pregnancy is fine other that a few twinges and the grumpiness. After the scare of bub being transverse for a few weeks around the 30 weeks mark, it settled into a 'normal' position - head down, spine on my right (which is what Eden stayed in since around 20 weeks). This week it seems to be having a change of scene and alternating between left and right which is a bit weird.

And how is Eden?
Eden has finally 'got it' we think about the new baby coming. He now has a phrase "out baby" - meaning the baby that is going to come out of Mummy's tummy. I had heard a couple of stories about children being quite happy about there being a baby in Mummy's tummy but not realising it was going to come out! I will not be able to explain to him that it will take over our lives for a while but anyhow, at least it is a start.

The funniest event so far in this regard was recently when Eden walked into the baby's room with a teddy in his hands, pointed at the bassinet, made a motion of the teddy being pulled from between his legs and said "baby come out!" quite profoundly! I'm not sure if I'll blame this on a book Tim and Megan gave him about 'the new baby' or our game we play sometimes when he is getting his nappy changed where he closes his eyes and I stuff a soft toy animal up his top and say "what kind of baby is coming out of Eden's tummy?" and he giggles and pullls out a surprise kangaroo or beaver or something!

I had been quite worried about how Eden would cope emotionally and how I would entertain him while I sat with a newborn at my breast for 45 minute stretches umpteen times a day. I had bought a few little activities, sticker sets, paint set and the like but now that Duncan has heaps of time off I'm not really worried at all.

It also helps that Eden is able to play by himself more now and has more of an imagination. So far, apart from things with trucks etc, it is the very rountine things in his day that he is play acting. A couple of days ago we played together for a long time "bathing" soft toys in our big red bowl (normally for toy storage) and today we did the going to bed routine on the lounge floor with cushions from the couch and jerseys for blankets - quite an appropriate one for a pregnant Mum who is not fond of moving around too quickly at the moment! It is such a cute thing to watch develop when it is such a new kind of skill/activity.

Duncan has just come downstairs and announced that he hasn't actually got very far with the photography because his batteries aren't charged enough. He's taken the laptop to bed and is watching a movie I don't really want to watch. I have enough trouble sleeping at the moment without some dumb action movie dancing upon my poor brain.

I am also trying not to worry about the names for our baby - especially when I should be asleep. We have settled on a nice Biblical boys name which is great but the girls name is a tiny bit Hollywoodish - you know like Gwyneth Paltrow naming her child 'Apple' so I am having second thoughts about it. This is a task we find so difficult. We are not like some people who seem to choose from a list of possibilities - it's more like a miracle when we find a name that both of us likes!

Oh Well, we shall see, not long now and we will have to just get it sorted (that said our dear neighbours across the road have left their child unamed for weeks so some people are really quite relaxed about this!).

I should probably go and do something useful. There is no end to tidying and housework opportunities which I hate. Laundry just never ends and I never seem to be able to actually finish all that should really be washed. I love to kill two birds with one stone - that is the only way our bathroom doesn't get completely gross - I maintain it while Eden is bathing in the weekend.

That said, he thinks he is tops at the moment because he has begun to have showers by himself (well with me in the door way) and this has become the preferred choice over bathing. He has been getting washed morning and night at the moment + having lots of 'no nappy time' while we try and get a horrible wee sore to heal (a nappy rash reaction to orange juice or something that we didn't get on top of immediately and have learned a lesson...)

Right, I said I was going to go and do something useful, though I might just have a shower and go to bed... It is after 10pm after all - it might help the grumpiness if I stop going to bed so late all the time...